FIG. 1A illustrates a prior art desktop personal computer (e.g. IBM.TM. PC) 100 that includes a monitor 101, a system chassis 102 and a keyboard 103. System chassis 102 includes a number of boards (not shown in FIG. 1A) that are enclosed by housing 104. While housing 104 has an opening 105 for insertion of a floppy disk (not shown) into a disk drive 106, the user must perform a number of inconvenient, clumsy and time consuming actions to install a board, for example to add fax-modem functionality.
To install such a board, the user must first access rear panel 107 (FIG. 1B), to remove screws 108A-108E using a screwdriver. Then the user must pull cover 109 (FIG. 1C) straight forward in the direction of arrows 110A and 110B and then lift cover 109 upward in the direction of arrow 110C (FIG. 1D). During cover removal, the user must take care to ensure that any cables inside system chassis 102 are not caught in a catch (not shown) of cover 107.
The user must then remove an oblong plate, such as one of dust plates 111A-111G (better shown in FIG. 1B) that are used to keep out dust, by taking out a screw (not shown) that holds the dust plate in place on rear panel 107. Then the user must insert a plug connector (not shown) of a new board into a socket connector such as one of socket connectors J1-J14 of system board 113 (FIG. 1E) and also fasten the new board's rear plate to rear panel 107 with the screw that held the removed dust plate.
To install a new central processing unit (CPU), the user performs similar steps as described above. However, instead of inserting a new board, the user must pull out an old CPU chip 114 from an integrated circuit (IC) socket connector 115 on system board 113 and insert the new CPU chip in IC socket connector 115. Such replacement of CPU chips is not possible if old CPU chip 114 is soldered to system board 113 or if old CPU chip 114 has a pin-out different from the pin-out of the new CPU chip. In such a case, system board 113 must be replaced, using at least a screwdriver.
FIG. 1F illustrates an intuitive, easy and simple way to install or replace peripherals and memory in a prior art notebook PC 120. A user simply opens a door 121 to expose an opening 122 in housing 123 and inserts a personal-computer-memory-card-international association (PCMCIA) card 124 of the type described in "PC Card Standard" available from PCMCIA, 1030 East Duane, Suite G, Sunnyvale, Calif. 94086, Phone 1-408-720-0107 and that is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In the example of FIG. 1F, PCMCIA card 124 is an ethernet card having a PCMCIA plug connector 125 at one end for user-removable connection to a PCMCIA socket connector (not shown) in opening 122. PCMCIA card 124 also has an adapter connector 126 located opposite to plug connector 125 for connection to ethernet cables.
Therefore installing a peripheral in notebook PC 120 is as easy as inserting a floppy disk into a disk drive of a desktop PC. The user does not need to perform any of the clumsy actions described above in reference to FIGS. 1A-1E.
A number of PCMCIA cards are available, such as mass storage cards, network cards and fax-modem cards, all of approximately the same length and width as a credit card.
However, to install or replace a central processing unit (CPU) of notebook PC 120, a user must still perform clumsy actions of the type described above in reference to FIGS. 1A-1E. Such user actions are made even more difficult because of space constraints inherent in notebook PC 120.